


say you want me (cause I need it, all of the time)

by transit (dollyeo)



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Blowjobs, Boyfriends, Coming Out, Coming of Age, Consensual Underage Sex, Crossdressing, Dry Humping, Family Drama, Happy Ending, Horny Teenagers, M/M, Non-Penetrative Sex, Secret Relationship, The sex isn't central to the plot, Toys, i think, thigh fucking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-07-02 23:18:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15806571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollyeo/pseuds/transit
Summary: At seventeen, Soonyoung thinks he knows what he wants.Maybe Wonwoo's got it all figured out, too.





	say you want me (cause I need it, all of the time)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [calculus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/calculus/gifts).



> dear [calculus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/calculus),
> 
> I wanted to give you better things, like this Wonwoo only wants for Soonyoung. Please take this meager offering instead. I know you said you wanted no angst, but this story took a mind of its own and the rest is history.
> 
> Enjoy ♥

At seventeen, Soonyoung thinks he knows what he wants. 

It's easy. Off the top of his head, he's already got a shortlist, all in increasing order of improbability. A new laptop. Concert tickets to SM town. A limited edition box set of all of Shinee's concert DVDs. A new pair of Nikes. A dog for his birthday. A date with a celebrity. A spike in his daily allowance. Scoring a date before high school ends. Being able to touch an idol's hand. World peace. Losing his (technical) virginity. Oh, and winning the lottery, even without putting in a bet for it. All doable things, right?

"Wrong," says Chan, barely looking up from his own homework. "Maybe if you saved a country in your past life, then sure."

"Your support, as always, is astounding," says Soonyoung, with a sigh.

Chan, no matter how annoying and smug he can be, is right. As it is, the most realistic stuff he can hope for are few and far in between: waking up early; catching the train before rush hour; remembering to do his homework; not getting nagged at for using up his allowance on merch and cutting it too close to his curfew; staying awake during literature. 

Actually passing his classes. Not being held back a grade.

And then there's Suneung. God. Suneung. Maybe he should move the last few things down to the list of impossible, herculean tasks at this point. If Soonyoung can just snag a rich person to keep him alive and well-fed for eternity, he'd be happy.

"You think I should write down _sugar baby_ as a career option instead?" Soonyoung asks, mostly serious at this point. He's spent three hours doing practice tests for English. _English_. When's he even gonna use it if he doesn't plan on leaving Korea anytime soon? Never, that's when.

Chan finally looks up, if only to give him a disapproving frown that single-handedly makes Soonyoung want to curl up into a ball and never show his face ever again. Lesser men would cave, though, and Soonyoung is nothing if not confident. "Who'd even want you?"

Okay, so maybe that one stings, just a little. Soonyoung throws an eraser at him, and Chan just deflects it with the notebook he raises to shield his face. “Plenty of people want me!”

“Like who?”

“ _People_ ,” Soonyoung insists. He's not naming any names. He's a gentleman like that, fuck you. “Really hot ones!”

Chan continues to look skeptical. Soonyoung refuses to be shamed, but it’s a little hard not to, even from years of practice trying not to shrink under volumes of judgment from people like his sister, or Jihoon, or— or—

Or _Wonwoo_. God. As if he needs a reminder of _that_.

"You're not even supposed to know what a sugar baby is," he continues, weakly.

"I also know I have a girlfriend and you've never even kissed anyone," says Chan. "I think I'm way more experienced than you at this point, hyung."

Soonyoung squawks but doesn't say anything to defend himself. Chan is, like, _14_ , so clearly he doesn't know what he's talking about. Soonyoung _has_ kissed someone! He's kissed plenty of people on the cheek in pre-school, back when he thought it was a perfectly acceptable way to greet stray cats, dogs and kids his age before they started making fun of him for it. Fuck Chan.

"Pretty sure your girlfriend's also fake," he says instead, making his tone sound as disparaging as possible. "Where's she from again? Canada?"

"I'm still not letting you meet her," says Chan. "You'll just scare her off."

"Impossible," says Soonyoung. "How's that gonna happen if she doesn't exist?"

"I know you're just jealous you're not going out with anyone and taking it out on me," says Chan, loftily. "That's fine. I can be the bigger person."

"You're five feet tall. You have no room to talk when you can probably barely come up to your girlfriend's shoulder."

"Oh, so now you admit she's real?"

"As real as my equally fictional idol boyfriend."

Chan cocks his head to the side. "Boyfriend?"

"Or girlfriend," Soonyoung catches himself, cheeks warming. "I'm an equal opportunity person. Can't be too picky about who I sink my claws into, you know."

"A professional gold-digger," Chan sighs. "What would your mother say about your life choices, hyung?"

"Trust me," says Soonyoung, "she's already got plenty of opinions about them."

*

“What’s this?” His mother asks him when he gets home one afternoon. In her hands, she’s got his counselling form smoothed out from its previous life as a crumpled ball in the bottom of his waste basket, and he has to hold back a groan at the sight of it. “Why does your career form say you want to marry an idol?”

“ _Mom_ , please stop going through my trash,” Soonyoung whines.

“I’ll stop snooping around your room when you stop hiding things like this from me, Kwon Soonyoung,” she says, sternly, before her expression twists into something weepy. “First it was cartoon pornography, and now _this_.”

“I got those from Wonwoo!”

“Nonsense, that boy would never do anything morally questionable. _You_ , on the other hand, keep breaking my poor heart—”

Soonyoung moves past her and up the stairs, tuning her out as she continues to wax poetic about people his age that aren’t her only son. She’s especially fond of Wonwoo for some reason, if only because he has the kind of face that parents dream of seeing when their children take their significant others home to meet them. It’s just too bad Wonwoo has no interest in Soonyoung’s older sister, or they’d be setting up a match by now.

Considering where Wonwoo’s interests are skewed towards, Soonyoung doubts his mother would let Wonwoo into Soonyoung’s room ever again if she knew.

“An idol, Soonyoung,” she continues to nag at him, hot on his heels. “ _A celebrity_! Who are you gonna trick into marrying you if you have no plans of going into med school?”

“What about my good looks and my charming personality?” He mutters.

She looks even more crestfallen, at that. “But Soonyoung— this is real life, not a drama!”

Soonyoung makes it a point to slam his bedroom door behind him, but she just hovers outside it for a moment, not daring to let herself in like she would when it’s six-thirty in the morning and he’s dangerously close to being late for class. “Soonyoung-ah, I’m sorry. Don’t be mad at mom, okay? I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I’m not mad,” he mutters, voice muffled by the pillow he’s attempting to suffocate himself with. It doesn’t work.

“Maybe if you were an engineer,” she tries.

“Mom,” he begs. “Please stop.”

“Okay, honey,” she says, but doesn’t step away. “What about marrying a CEO instead?”

*

“Why are you redoing your career form?” Junhui asks, peering over his shoulder in class. “Weren’t we supposed to be done with this last week?”

“I never handed it in,” Soonyoung says, glumly. “I dunno what I wanna do yet and I don’t want the teachers to talk to my parents about it yet.”

“Well, what were you planning on writing down?”

Soonyoung shows him. Junhui squints.

“Soonyoung, I don’t think _kept man’s mistress_ is a viable career option.”

“It works out pretty well for all the women in the dramas,” says Soonyoung.

“Yeah, but then you’d have to put out,” Jihoon interrupts, already bored of last-minute cramming for their next period’s assignment. “And then they’d realize you sucked at that.”

“I could be good in bed!” Soonyoung squawks, ego bruised.

“Who’s good in bed?” Wonwoo speaks up out of nowhere, and Soonyoung nearly upends his entire desk just to steer clear of Wonwoo breathing down on his ear. Personal space is a thing that exists in fiction, apparently.

“No one,” Soonyoung bites out. “Not you!”

Wonwoo arches an eyebrow at him, and it makes Soonyoung feel very, very small and on edge. “I’m sure you’d know exactly all about that.”

“La la la,” says Jihoon. “I’m not listening to this conversation anymore.”

Wonwoo opens his mouth to say something, but he’s waved over by one of their other classmates and he makes his way to the other side of the room without looking back. Soonyoung, still flustered, just slouches and exhales. “God,” he mutters, rubbing his palm over his forehead. “He’s so annoying.”

“He only likes to rile you up because you react so much around him,” says Junhui, patting his leg. "He'll stop if you ignore him."

“ _Annoying_ ,” Soonyoung insists. All those love letters and confessions in the back of the gym? He’s got so many people fooled, and they have no idea what a pain in the ass he is.

“You should just ignore him when he provokes you,” says Junhui. He takes another look at whatever it is Soonyoung’s hastily scribbling in his own form, then grimaces. “I don’t think _being Jeon Wonwoo’s master_ is a valid life choice either, Soonyoung.”

“Kinky,” says Jihoon. “I’m sure your mother would be proud.”

“My mom would kick my ass,” Soonyoung concedes with a sigh, and erases everything on his form again. Then he puts in, _CEO’s househusband_ , because if the teachers have to talk to his parents about it, then at least he can blame his own mom for planting that idea into his head.

He’s nothing if not an impressionable young man.

*

The thing is, Soonyoung's parents aren't that bad.

Sure, his mom always pinches the bridge of her nose when she has to remind him for the tenth time to pick up his clothes from the floor, and sure, his dad doesn't quite understand his hobbies and has to be convinced with many chores before he even forks over a couple thousand extra won to his allowance, but he can live with those things. It's fine. They're fine. He doesn't have much to complain about.

It’s just that they mean well, but they’re bad at showing it. Soonyoung always seems to surround himself with those kinds of people, the ones that love you but live to annoy you at the same time, even when they don’t mean it.

“Hey,” says Wonwoo, squinting up at him when Soonyoung voices this thought out loud. “Are you calling me annoying?”

“You’re always annoying, oh my god,” says Soonyoung. He yanks at the top of Wonwoo’s bedhead, then pushes him down to where he’d been mouthing at Soonyoung’s balls earlier. “Go back to sucking my cock, asshole.”

“That’s not a very nice way to ask for things, Soonyoung-ah,” says Wonwoo, loftily, and Soonyoung would tell him where he could go shove it but Wonwoo hollows out his cheeks and sucks him off so forcefully Soonyoung swears he could see stars leaking out of his orifices. Wonwoo’s messy about giving blowjobs, too much spit and teeth that sometimes Soonyoung can’t help but buck up and sob when he gets a little too enthusiastic about it, but it’s three in the afternoon on a weekend and Wonwoo’s mom is watching TV downstairs, completely oblivious to her eldest son’s attempts to wring as many orgasms out of Soonyoung as he can instead of doing homework. It’s practically torture and murder at this point, especially when Soonyoung has to bite down on his own arm just to keep his voice down.

Death by non-penetrative sex. What a way to go.

He ends up coming embarrassingly quickly into Wonwoo’s mouth, and Wonwoo makes a face but just pulls off Soonyoung’s dick with a loud _pop_ and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. Soonyoung would find it hot, but he’s too busy catching his breath and trying to recover his mental faculties instead of slipping into the goo-like substance that Wonwoo’s reduced him to at this point.

Wonwoo doesn’t try to kiss him, not after the first few times Soonyoung had gagged and shoved his face away when he attempted it. Part of Soonyoung is genuinely grossed out about the aftertaste of his own come lingering in Wonwoo’s mouth, and the pettier part of him that’s still sore about Wonwoo making fun of him in pre-school for attempting to plant a kiss on his cheek is just doing it to make a point. It’s probably a point that’s lost to Wonwoo now, the irony bitter on Soonyoung’s tongue, but Soonyoung has to wonder if it’s just him that’s missing out when Wonwoo just shrugs and looks like he doesn’t mind not being able to kiss Soonyoung at all.

Before he can feel sulky about it, he feels more than sees Wonwoo sidle up and against him, fingers tapping at Soonyoung’s hip to catch his attention. “Either I’m getting better at this, or you’re just getting worse,” he teases.

“I’m a teenage boy,” Soonyoung points out. “When am I _not_ ready to cream my pants at any given moment?”

“Fair enough,” says Wonwoo. He scrunches his nose up as he chuckles, and Soonyoung’s struck, for a moment, at the thought that he really, really wants to kiss Wonwoo. “Wanna try ordering a cock ring online?”

“ _No_ ,” says Soonyoung, shoving him off with a yelp. “What if anyone else sees it?”

“Then I’d have to kill them if they did,” says Wonwoo. He looks like he’s mostly joking. Maybe. “I plan on never letting you take it off.”

“You’re so gross.”

“Don’t kink shame me. What if I just wanna watch you squirm?”

“See, this is why you’re so annoying.”

“I’m doing your stress levels and your emotional well-being a service by giving you as many orgasms as possible,” says Wonwoo. He places his hands on Soonyoung’s hips, palms spread out, and rolls him over until he’s got his cheek pressed against the mattress and his ass up in the air, pressing up against Wonwoo’s erection. “It’s great for burning calories too.”

“I’m still not letting you put your dick inside me,” says Soonyoung, weakly, even as he grinds back onto Wonwoo’s crotch.

“Not _yet_ ,” Wonwoo argues, laughing. He rests his chin against Soonyoung’s shoulder, face only a couple of inches away from Soonyoung’s cheek, and when his lips brush Soonyoung’s ear, Soonyoung can’t help but shiver. “Give it a year and a few more months to convince my parents to let me get my own apartment for uni, and then we’ll talk.”

“Who says I’m even moving in with you?” He retorts, trying desperately not to turn his head and wipe Wonwoo's smug grin away from his face accidentally-on-purpose. It's the hardest thing he's ever had to do, barring keeping himself quiet while getting eaten out and finger-fucked as Wonwoo's brother slept in the next room, a light sleeper if there ever was one. He wants to kiss him so, so badly it hurts, and Wonwoo's a cocktease and an intruder of personal space of the highest order, with or without the sex.

 _Especially_ without the sex. He's a menace.

“No curfews, no rules, no chores,” says Wonwoo. “No annoying siblings. No overbearing parents. No mind-numbing commutes. Great company.” He nips at Soonyoung’s ear, none too gently. “Amazing sex.”

Honestly, Soonyoung would move in with him in a heartbeat if he’d stopped at chores. “You’re so full of yourself.”

Wonwoo bucks forward, fucking into the gap between Soonyoung’s thighs with a shaky groan that makes a knot form in Soonyoung’s belly, tight and heavy. “Can’t wait until you’re full of me too,” he whispers, fingers brushing against the flat of Soonyoung’s stomach, before he reaches down and starts milking Soonyoung’s erection. “I’ll make it so, so good for you, Soonyoung.”

“You’ll probably suck the first time,” Soonyoung bites out, but Wonwoo rocks into him again so forcefully Soonyoung’s dick grinds against the mattress with every thrust. They don’t talk, just groaning and rubbing up against each other like they can’t get enough, the slick-sweat noises from their skin meeting in a pantomime of actual fucking keeping Soonyoung on edge, knotted up. And through it all, Wonwoo just pants into his ear, just braces his hands against Soonyoung’s hips and pushes him back to meet his thrusts, desperate now.

The friction’s too much for Soonyoung to take, and it’s not long before he comes and spills into Wonwoo’s hand, right as Wonwoo lets out a breathy exhale of his name as he jerks him off.

“Forget a cock ring,” says Wonwoo, smug. “We should get you a chastity belt next time.”

Soonyoung would argue, but he’s shaking all over, limbs aching and barely supporting his own weight. He feels so light-headed, every cell of his body feeling like it’s afloat, and it’s only Wonwoo’s body pounding into the space between his legs that’s keeping him anchored to reality.

He keeps his thighs pressed firmly together, hot and slick and soft around Wonwoo’s cock. Everything feels gross and sweaty and way too hot, but he doesn’t move, doesn’t let up until he can hear Wonwoo’s breath hitch and his thrusts turn erratic, wilder and more uncontrollable as he works up to his own peak.

Wonwoo pulls off his thighs, tugging at his own cock as he watches Soonyoung’s legs splay apart at the loss of warmth; Soonyoung doesn’t need to look at him to know that Wonwoo’s looking at him with dark eyes, pupils blown with heady lust. Come splatters on the small of his back soon after Wonwoo’s shaky groan of his name, and Soonyoung reaches out to touch the mess on his back, fingers spreading it across his overheated skin.

“Gross,” Soonyoung whines. “Now I’m gonna go home smelling like a slut clocking off of work.”

“Then just sleep over,” says Wonwoo. His fingers come down to cover Soonyoung’s hand, strangely proprietary even as he keeps the touch light. “I don’t mind.”

“I don’t have any clothes.”

“Wear mine, then.”

“But—”

“Soonyoung,” says Wonwoo, firmer, now. “Stop complaining and just stay in. One night won’t kill you.” He rolls them over until he’s on his back and Soonyoung’s splayed out over his chest, their limbs tangled together and cooling. “Okay?”

Soonyoung swallows the lump in his throat, then sighs. “Okay.”

*

Everything is not okay.

“Fifty-thousand won and I won’t tell mom about your walk of shame this morning,” says his sister over breakfast the next day.

Soonyoung splutters, nearly dropping the laundry basket in his arms. “What walk of shame?” He argues. “I was in my room all night!”

“I wasn’t as asleep on the couch as you think I was when you crawled into the house at six AM,” she says. “All the noise you made woke me _and_ the cat up.”

“I could have just slept over at a friend’s place!” Soonyoung insists.

“Yeah, but you were at Wonwoo’s yesterday,” she says, giving him a meaningful look that he’s not sure he wants to read too deeply into. He _refuses_ to take the bait.

“What if I just missed the last bus?”

“Right. And is that why you suddenly decided to do laundry of your own volition?”

“I don’t have anything to wear anymore.”

“You use a uniform to school.”

“What if I wanna wear this today?”

“Good luck washing the white gunk off of your shorts, then.”

“I could have had an unfortunate accident in my sleep.” Soonyoung clears his throat. “A natural phenomenon, like you with your periods.”

“Uh huh.” She shoves a spoonful of cornflakes into her mouth. “Nice hickey, by the way.”

Soonyoung opens his mouth. Then closes it.

“Here,” she says, feeling around in her pockets. She tosses him a tube of concealer, and he almost drops it in his surprise. “I’ll teach you how to use it if you promise to never do it with your secret boyfriend in my room.”

“You _can’t_ tell anyone about this,” he wails.

“My lips are sealed with money,” she says, beatifically. “And lots of compliments, but money is appreciated more in the long run.”

“I’m serious,” he hisses. “Mom’s gonna go ballistic if she finds out!”

“That you’re hooking up with Wonwoo? Of course she will. She’s been trying to set Wonwoo up with _me_ every time she sees him. Good to know she’ll get her ideal son-in-law either way.” She taps her fingers against her chin, contemplating something. “Hey, tell him to bring cake when he comes over next time.”

“What do you mean, when he comes over? I’m not letting him come near you or mom with a ten-foot pole.”

“Why? Are you afraid she’s gonna skin him alive?”

“Worse,” he says, grimly. “She’ll kill _me_.”

*

“My mom says your mom is worried you’re acting weird around her,” says Chan.

“My mom should keep her mouth shut,” says Soonyoung, “and yours should mind her own business.”

“They both think you’ve got a secret girlfriend,” says Chan. “I told her you can’t even hold hands with someone romantically without looking like you want to set yourself on fire and spontaneously combust, but I think mom’s just being nice.” He looks Soonyoung up and down, then gives him a mocking smile. “It’s impossible for you to get a girlfriend, hyung.”

“Fuck you,” Soonyoung protests. “I can get anyone I want if I put my mind into it!”

“I highly doubt that,” says Chan, snorting. “You’re too high-maintenance for your own good.”

*

“Do you think I’m too high-maintenance?”

Wonwoo takes a sip of his iced americano, then strokes his jaw. “When are you never not high-maintenance?”

Soonyoung throws a paper napkin at him, and Wonwoo, the annoying bastard, just laughs and crumples it up in his palm. Then he smoothens it out on the table like a dork, and if Soonyoung feels a little fuzzy and hopelessly endeared by it, well then. At least no one’s around to call him out for it.

“I’m serious,” says Wonwoo. “You hate it when I get your order wrong. You didn’t get that sweater you were eyeing in the store because it wasn’t the right shade of yellow you wanted. You got mad at me for being a couple of minutes late at the train station. How are you not high-maintenance?”

“That’s called being a normal person with standards,” says Soonyoung.

“You were sulking when I didn’t hold your hand at the intersection.”

“ _Standards_ ,” Soonyoung insists. He tries not to think long and hard about what Chan had said about Soonyoung being uncomfortable with PDA that was anything but platonic. He’s _trying_ , okay? Fuck you, Lee Chan.

“Okay,” says Wonwoo, sighing. “Let’s say you weren’t high-maintenance—"

“Which I’m not.”

Wonwoo gives him a look, but forges on. “Which you’re not. _In theory_.” Soonyoung opens his mouth and glares at him, but quiets down when Wonwoo wipes cheese powder off his cheek with a tissue. “I don’t mind, either way. I think it’s cute when you act spoiled around me.”

“I’m not spoiled,” Soonyoung mumbles, then bats Wonwoo’s hand away. “And I’m not cute!”

“Well, if you’re not cute, then how on earth are you going to fulfill your dreams of marrying rich?”

“Who told you that?” Soonyoung demands. “Was it Chan? I’ll kill him.”

“No one’s killing anyone. We need you out of bars before you even get into college.”

“ _If_ I get into college,” says Soonyoung, deflating. He thinks about the stack of homework and practice sheets and the invitations from his other friends that he’d blown off this morning when Wonwoo had tentatively texted him if he wanted to hang out, and then the sinking dread of utter failure and aimlessness wells up in him all over again, familiar and unwanted.

“You’ll get in, drama queen,” says Wonwoo. “And if you don’t, then it’s fine. I’ll take care of both of us.”

“What are you gonna do, bang a CEO of some company and blackmail him into doing your bidding?”

“I was thinking _I’d_ be the CEO eventually,” says Wonwoo, primly. He gives Soonyoung a wicked smile, just as he tangles their feet together under the table. “Then maybe you can call me daddy.”

“I regret meeting you and ever letting you touch my dick,” Soonyoung informs him, gravely.

“Too bad,” says Wonwoo. “And here I was thinking we could try out this onahole I got online.”

Soonyoung’s mouth falls open, jaw slack.

Wonwoo’s nose scrunches up, just as he laughs. “First time for everything, right?”

*

Soonyoung ends up not doing any English homework or math worksheets that day, but he does get a full-on experience of Wonwoo jerking him off with a fake plastic vagina, lots of lube, and three fingers up his ass. It’s a very productive day, all in all.

*

“Your secret boyfriend is bad for you,” says his sister, when she has to open the front door for him at half-past midnight. “He’s turning you into a sex addict.”

“He is _not_ ,” Soonyoung protests, flushing. He stalks past her in the hallway, then picks up the cat before Hoshi can wake their parents up with his non-stop meowing.

“Not what?” She calls out. “Bad for you? Or a sex addict?”

“My secret boyfriend!” Soonyoung hisses.

His sister just laughs her ass off so hard she collapses on the floor, clutching her stomach. Good, Soonyoung thinks. He hopes she chokes on her own spit and never lives to tell the tale. He’s already 50,000 won poorer for it.

“I’m not a sex addict,” he mutters to the cat. “I’ve never even taken it up the ass.”

The cat presses his paw to Soonyoung’s forehead and meows. If he’s telling Soonyoung he’s a big fucking dumbass for overthinking, well. Soonyoung’s not gonna protest that.

“You’re right,” he says, somberly. “You’re the only one I can trust now.”

*

“Wow, how many mosquitoes have been hanging around your house?”

Soonyoung slaps a hand over the side of his neck. “Lots,” he says, scrunching up his nose. “Very annoying, persistent ones.”

“They must really like you, then,” says Junhui, voice muffled as he changes out of his uniform and into the PE shirt. “You look like you’ve been mauled by a swarm of insects.”

“I’ll think about it,” he lies, then gives Wonwoo a dirty look when he passes by and whistles at his own handiwork on Soonyoung’s throat.

And he wonders why Soonyoung calls him annoying every time.

*

“I think we need to stop having sex every time we see each other.”

“I think global warming needs to stop and people should adopt more cats and dogs, but those two things are both likelier to happen than what you want.”

“Are you calling me a cock slut?”

“All I’m saying is that you’re very distracting when you’re wearing short shorts,” says Wonwoo, nuzzling his cheek and making Soonyoung’s breath hitch as he strokes his belly. “And we’re both teenagers with no self-control.”

“ _You_ have no self-control.”

“Right,” says Wonwoo, sounding patronizing. “You were the one who climbed me like a tree before I even shut the door behind us.”

“There was a spider on the floor!” Soonyoung protests. “I had to save myself!”

“A spider, huh?” Wonwoo muses. He curls an arm around Soonyoung’s waist, dragging him closer until their bodies are pressed together so tightly, Soonyoung can feel Wonwoo’s heart beat under his palm. “Hey Soonyoung, I think there’s a snake in my pants.”

“You’re not wearing any pants,” Soonyoung points out.

Wonwoo cuts him off with a kiss, and Soonyoung sinks into it with a sigh. He gropes around the back of Wonwoo’s thighs, up his hips, and down to touch his dick.

“Feels more like a cigarette, really,” he says, cheekily. “Too bad I don’t smoke.”

“Says the person who can’t even fit it into his mouth,” says Wonwoo. 

Soonyoung doesn’t back down from a challenge, though, so he crawls down under the blankets and makes it a point to prove Wonwoo wrong about that.

*

They don’t always have sex, though. God, they really don’t, even if Soonyoung sometimes wishes they did.

They try to do homework. They mostly end up playing games or watching movies instead, but it’s the sentiment that counts. Sure, Soonyoung’s ready to admit he thinks about sex 24/7, but his dick would chafe if he actually let himself do half the things he wants.

Besides, his mom believes he shouldn’t get distracted by girls while he’s still in high school. So boys it is, then. It’s a fair compromise.

Now, if only he’d gotten one less annoying and way easier to fit into his demands.

 _I want ice cream_ , he texts Wonwoo, out of the blue.

 _Then get some_ , comes Wonwoo’s quick reply, not even a few seconds later. _I’m at cram school_.

 _Fine_ , Soonyoung sulks. _I’ll go ask Junhui_.

Wonwoo doesn’t reply, not for a while, and Soonyoung chalks it up to Wonwoo being knee-deep into a lecture. He doesn’t end up inviting Junhui even if he lives only a couple of blocks away, so he just sulks and decides to watch porn on his laptop instead of thinking about the slight sting of rejection he’s still smarting from.

Maybe Chan’s got a point about Soonyoung being high-maintenance after all.

He’s got his shorts hanging off of his ankle and a hand down his briefs when Wonwoo calls him around nine in the evening, the fucker taking full advantage of his dad’s postpaid line instead of messaging him on KKT like any other sane student. Soonyoung has to wipe down all the sweat and precome on his pillowcase to even properly unlock his phone without it slipping off of his fingers, and he’s ready to chew Wonwoo out and maybe rope him into some phone sex, if only Wonwoo didn’t speak first.

“I’m gonna be late,” says Wonwoo, something that sounds like a cheesy old pop song blaring from the radio and muffling his voice so much that Soonyoung has to press his phone closer to his ear, the dig of the plastic against his cheek painful, almost. “I missed the bus, so I’m taking a cab now.” 

“With what money?” Soonyoung asks, suspiciously. “I thought you used up all your allowance on Gunpla and Neko Atsume tokens?” 

“I told my mom I was gonna go over to Jihoon’s for a group project,” says Wonwoo, loftily. “She gave me money for dinner on my way out.” 

“Do your parents know they’re raising a conman?” 

Wonwoo laughs, and the sound makes Soonyoung’s fingers clench around his phone, as tight as the knot of anticipation that’s been sitting restlessly in his stomach for a while now. “I’ll buy you something to eat,” says Wonwoo. “Now stop pouting and wait for me outside.” 

“Do you want me to _freeze_ out there?” 

“I’ll warm you up,” Wonwoo promises, and Soonyoung’s other hand fumbles with the mouse, blindly clicking around the page. Wonwoo laughs again, and Soonyoung, flustered, hastily clicks save and closes the laptop. “What was that? Did you break something again?” 

“ _No_ ,” Soonyoung insists. He gets up from his study table, rooting around for his keys and a clean pair of bottoms. “I’ll meet you at the 7-Eleven across the street. _Don’t_ make me wait too long.” 

“Says the one who’s always late for everything,” says Wonwoo, and Soonyoung hangs up on him, too flustered to say anything back. Then he turns his phone off, just to prove a point. 

He pockets his keys and his wallet, then musters all his skills at stealth to sneak out of the apartment, even if the cat keeps eyeing him with volumes of judgment the entire time. He fails at that, caught by his mother just as he’s hastily shoving a pair of flip-flops on in the doorway, and he ends up getting roped into buying a few things from the grocery after he cites hunger and snacking urges as an excuse. 

He ends up being later than Wonwoo, who just sighs and shoves a carton of banana milk at him when he plasters on an apologetic look and says he can only stay for half an hour, tops. He lets Wonwoo guide him by the arm and shoulders around the store, though, because holding hands is just too much, too open, but staying close is enough for now. 

Wonwoo walks him back and carries the bag of groceries for him, letting Soonyoung talk the entire time, but he tells Soonyoung it’s fine, it’s not like he was planning on staying longer anyway, not when they have homework to think about. It doesn’t make the guilt demons stop gnawing at Soonyoung’s skin, but it’s enough to keep him distracted, hyper focused on every scrunch of Wonwoo’s nose, the twitch of his lips that he can’t tell if it’s the beginning of an indulgent smile or a displeased frown. 

Whatever it is, Soonyoung kisses it away in the dark corner of the stairway, a blind spot from the security cameras and empty of other tenants. He can feel Wonwoo’s breath hitch under his lips, and Soonyoung wants to deepen the kiss, to make it last longer than he can afford to, but someone opens their front door a few feet away and Soonyoung has to ruefully pull back. 

“Next time,” Soonyoung promises, cupping Wonwoo’s cheek and pinching his skin enough to make Wonwoo wince. 

“Yeah,” says Wonwoo, expression turning soft. “I’ll see you at school.” 

“Okay,” says Soonyoung. He can feel a lump form in his throat, and he takes the bag of groceries from Wonwoo and pushes insistently at the small of his back to get him to leave. “Text me when you get back.” 

“I will,” says Wonwoo, ducking his head to the side. He looks around, then darts forward to press a quick kiss to Soonyoung’s jaw one last time. “Bye!” 

He presses his fingers to his jaw as he watches Wonwoo go, the skin from where Wonwoo’s lips touched him feeling warm all over. Even when Wonwoo’s out of his line of sight, he doesn’t move from his spot just yet, not until one of his neighbors comes across him on the staircase and squeezes past him with a questioning look at his dazed expression. 

“Sleepy already?” She asks him, and he turns pink, embarrassed. 

“Something like that,” he says, and turns around to run the rest of the way back to the apartment. 

*

He kicks off his slippers in the doorway and nearly bowls over the cat on his way to the kitchen. Leaving the groceries on the table, he ignores his mother’s attempts at getting him to unpack its contents, begging off dinner and yelling out that he isn’t hungry at all even if his stomach’s whining in protest. When he locks himself in his room, he sucks in a deep breath and smacks his cheeks, eyes squeezing shut and nose scrunching up. Then he does it again and again, just so he can stop feeling too unsettled about Wonwoo. 

Too powerful. Wonwoo’s too good at making his heart flutter, and he needs to _stop_. It’s practically cheating at this point, how Wonwoo always seems to know how to get exactly under his skin and push the right buttons. How’s Soonyoung supposed to compete with _that_? 

_Sex addict_ , his sister messages him at KKT.

Soonyoung ignores her and doesn’t feel the slightest bit guilty when he snakes a hand down his pants and gets himself off thinking about Wonwoo kissing him on the cheek, and then some.

*

“How do you know you’re addicted to sex?”

“How do you know the square root of 529 without using a calculator?” Jihoon retorts, curling his fingers tightly around his pen, poised to stab someone with it.

No one, unfortunately, notices. “Like, hypothetically?” Junhui asks, brows furrowed. “In a wet dream sense, or, like, addicted in a way that your dick feels like it’s gonna fall off from too much fapping?”

“Neither,” says Soonyoung.

“You don’t have a girlfriend,” Junhui points out.

“Neither do you,” says Soonyoung.

“I only have 2D,” says Junhui. “Moe is everything to me. Jihoonie, on the other hand—”

“What's the square root of 1296?” Jihoon asks, looking desperate enough to get out of this conversation as quickly as possible. “Anyone?”

“Maybe you should ask someone else about this,” says Junhui. “Someone with more experience.”

“Yes,” Jihoon vehemently agrees. “Like— like—” He looks around. “Wonwoo!”

Feeling like his heart’s caught in his throat, Soonyoung grabs at Jihoon’s arm and hisses. “What makes you think _Wonwoo_ even has any experience?”

“I don’t know,” says Jihoon. “He gets all those confessions from girls. He’s _had_ to have done something with someone who confessed to him at some point, right?”

“It’s always the quiet ones,” says Junhui, nodding.

“Oh my god,” says Soonyoung. “You guys don’t know shit.”

“Well, why don’t you ask him then, if you’re not sure?”

“I’m plenty sure,” says Soonyoung.

“About Wonwoo sleeping with girls, or about Wonwoo knowing anything about being a sex addict?”

“Both,” says Soonyoung, firmly, just as Wonwoo comes over to them with his hands shoved in his pockets and an annoying, smarmy smirk plastered on his face.

“What’s this I hear about being a sex addict?”

“Soonyoung thinks he’s one,” says Junhui. Wonwoo’s grin grows, and Soonyoung feels the urge to get swallowed up whole by the earth grow with it. “It must be a secret girlfriend.”

“Must be doing something right, then,” says Wonwoo.

“If they’re turning your attention span to mush, then you’re fucked,” says Jihoon, bluntly. “You already have zero brain cells as it is.”

“It’s good practice for his career goals,” says Wonwoo, placing his palm over Soonyoung’s nape. “Right, Soonyoung-ah?”

Soonyoung grits his teeth, then plucks Wonwoo’s hand off his neck with his fingers. “As lord and master of your suffering? Of course.”

“ _Please_ ,” says Wonwoo. “No matter what you do, you’re never gonna win against me.”

*

“Oh my god,” says Wonwoo. “I concede. You win. Please, please, _please_ let me take off your skirt.”

Soonyoung’s got both hands braced against Wonwoo’s chest, hips rutting and rocking back against the tent in Wonwoo’s pants lazily. They’re supposed to be doing their History paper, but Wonwoo spent an all-nighter speed-writing and proofreading the group project instead of doing what any sane person would do and just split the parts equally, if only because he claimed Soonyoung wrote like a fucking _snail_ and couldn’t be trusted to write anything outside of his own pace and his own time.

As a reward, Soonyoung had borrowed his sister’s old school uniform, hiking the skirt up and pulling on a pair of tights from Daiso. Oh, and panties. Very flimsy, lacy panties that cost more than the tights and the embarrassment he’d suffered having to crawl to his sister for help. His sister had given him an unreadable look and told him to destroy all pieces of evidence when he’d tried asking her how to figure out sizes, but not before reminding him of her thoughts about him and his boyfriend.

His boyfriend who, apparently, has a thing for seeing him in thigh highs. He’s definitely gonna burn everything after this, but it’s good to know he’s not the only one with the questionable kinks.

“Who’s the sex addict again?” He breathes against Wonwoo’s mouth, his own lips sticky-sweet with gloss. Wonwoo bucks up with a groan that Soonyoung muffles with a deep kiss, and his grip on Soonyoung’s thighs is firm, hard enough to leave bruises.

“I wanna eat you out,” Wonwoo moans, cupping his ass and spreading them open as they rub against each other. “Let me eat you out.”

“That’s not very polite,” says Soonyoung.

“ _Please_ ,” says Wonwoo. His nails scrabble down Soonyoung’s knee, rubbing circles into his skin. “I can suck you off too. Anything you want. I’ll be good for you, I promise.”

When he begs so prettily like that, who is Soonyoung to say no? Gathering up the hem of his skirt and hiking the fabric up as he clambers over Wonwoo, he lets out a slow, sinking sigh and breathes Wonwoo’s name as Wonwoo licks at the seam of his panties, nipping and biting at the inside of his thigh.

Even when Wonwoo’s losing, it still feels like he’s winning. Soonyoung doesn’t care, though; he bites his lip as Wonwoo rolls his panties down with his teeth and gives him a wicked look promising filth and everything no horny teenager should ever have the self-confidence to sport.

He moves to unhook the clasp of the skirt around his waist, but Wonwoo stops him before he can take it off. “Keep it on,” says Wonwoo. “I like it.”

“You’re a fucking pervert and I hope everyone who’s ever confessed to you knows it,” says Soonyoung.

“Well,” says Wonwoo, delicately, plucking at Soonyoung’s skirt. He bites into the meat of his thigh, and Soonyoung takes a deep, sharp breath, rolling his hips into the touch. “I should be glad I confessed to _you_ , shouldn’t I?”

“Shut up and blow me,” Soonyoung demands, imperiously.

He doesn’t have to ask twice.

*

“Definitely having too much sex,” he groans out, thighs aching and limbs heavy from exhaustion as he collapses against Wonwoo later on.

“It’s practice for later,” says Wonwoo, curling an arm around his hip. Soonyoung looks up at him questioningly, and Wonwoo tightens his hold around him. “For when I get filthy rich in the future.”

“So I’m supposed to be your kept man?” Soonyoung says, snidely.

“No,” says Wonwoo, laughing. He takes Soonyoung’s hand, bringing it up to his mouth to kiss the bare skin around his ring finger. “How does trophy husband sound?”

*

In all honesty, he’s not lying about people wanting him.

Or, at least, a person. One. As in, singular. And to this day, he still doesn’t know what on earth it is that Wonwoo’s ingested that made him confess out of nowhere to Soonyoung just before the summer of their last year in high school together, fireworks exploding in the backdrop of the sweltering July evening like one of those cheesy cartoons Jihoon, to this day, claims he only watches because Junhui makes him sit in front of the TV with him. Lies. Blatant lies.

It’s not as romantic as it sounds. Soonyoung had been sunburnt all over, complaining as he peeled and scratched at his skin, and Wonwoo was telling him it was all his fault he hadn’t listened to Wonwoo, and if he weren’t such a stubborn fucking idiot and let Wonwoo rub sunblock all over him then maybe he wouldn’t be suffering like this now, would he, and Soonyoung had told him to shut the fuck up and suck his dick and, well, Wonwoo got into his knees and did exactly that.

He’s not kidding. It’s still surreal to him, something straight out of some porno, really crazy exhibitionist shit that he swears up and down is real even if Jihoon and Junhui keep calling him a liar. He’d tangled his fingers into Wonwoo’s hair and fell apart as he bit down on the back of his own hand as he tried not to make noise, and it was only the sight of Wonwoo reaching down between his legs to palm his own cock that made Soonyoung reach his peak and decide that maybe, just maybe, he kinda liked Wonwoo enough that he didn’t mind a repeat performance of it.

He could have chosen a better time, though, really— what kind of asshole chooses the last year of high school to activate Soonyoung’s repressed (raging) hormones and rope him into spending more time on a horizontal surface than doing something more productive and less potentially destructive on his future? Jeon fucking Wonwoo, that’s who.

“I’m studying enough for both of us,” says Wonwoo, tipping his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “I’m very forward-thinking that way.”

“You got that formula wrong,” says Soonyoung, tapping his pencil at Wonwoo’s worksheet. Wonwoo squints at the paper, confused, and Soonyoung heaves a sigh. “How are you supposed to be the smart one again?”

“I’m linguistically-inclined,” Wonwoo defends himself. “Math is hard.”

“Math’s the easiest subject there is,” says Soonyoung.

“Why don’t you become a CPA and keep _me_ as your boytoy instead?” Wonwoo mutters.

“Too much effort,” says Soonyoung. Then, looking down at his English worksheet, he groans. “Also, I’m pretty sure I’m gonna fail everything before I even step into uni.”

“We’re both fucked, then.”

“Time to look for a real sugar daddy then,” Soonyoung despairs.

“You’ll have to take his dick,” Wonwoo reminds him. “You should be happy you’re with me. I’m perfectly content to wait for the honeymoon just to let you preserve the sanctity of your ass.”

“There is no honeymoon,” says Soonyoung. “I’m still not letting you fuck me.”

“Not _yet_.”

“Maybe if you were an actor,” Soonyoung muses. “Or an idol.” He pauses. “No, wait, never mind that. You don’t have the flexibility for it.”

“I’m flexible enough,” Wonwoo contends. “You weren’t complaining earlier when I—”

Soonyoung jabs his hip with a pencil, and not the soft, blunt edge where the eraser is. “ _Homework_ , Wonwoo. We’ll talk about your hypothetical career options for the future later.”

“Fine,” Wonwoo grumbles. “You owe me, like, a hundred blowjobs in the future.”

He looks so disgruntled Soonyoung can’t stop himself from placing a placating kiss to the corner of his mouth. The pout falters on Wonwoo’s face, and it’s funny to Soonyoung how easy it could be, to rile him up just as much as Wonwoo coaxes a storm of complicated feelings in him, too.

“If I don’t end up marrying an idol, then sure,” says Soonyoung.

*

“How much are you paying Wonwoo-hyung to keep your secret?”

Soonyoung almost drops the controller in his hands, then gives Chan a dirty look when he ends up crashing headfirst into a brick wall. He was supposed to babysit with Wonwoo, too, but Wonwoo had begged off because of some dumb family thing for lunch, and now Soonyoung’s stuck in hell with no way out.

In retrospect, maybe it’s even better Wonwoo’s not here. Then he wouldn’t have to watch Soonyoung’s splutter and make an idiot out of himself in the process.

“What the hell are you talking about now?” Soonyoung asks, far more eloquently than he’s expected himself to be capable of in the face of Chan’s narrow-eyed stare.

“You and Wonwoo-hyung have been hanging out together a lot,” says Chan, squinting at him. “Do you really have a secret girlfriend? Are you using him as an excuse to go see her?”

“When I told your mom I’d babysit you brats, I was expecting games and cookies, not an interrogation.”

“I’m not a baby,” Chunhee protests, chubby fingers grabbing at Soonyoung’s cheek in protest. “ _You’re_ the baby!”

“You weren’t born in the nineties,” says Soonyoung, sagely. “Anyone younger than that is a fetus to me.”

“I was born in 1999,” Chan supplies, drily.

“Still a baby,” says Soonyoung. “You shouldn’t be having girlfriends at your age, Lee Chan.”

“Well, what about you? You shouldn’t be dating girls while studying for your entrance exams. You’re bad at multitasking.”

“I’m not dating girls.”

“Your mom’s been telling my mom you’re failing all your practice exams except for math. Who even fails Korean anyway? You, that’s who, and all because you thought _now_ would be a great time to be irresponsible and dick around.”

“I’m not dicking around,” says Soonyoung, sullenly. “I’m being serious.”

“Soonyoung-hyung said a bad word,” Chunhee says, gleefully.

Soonyoung sighs. “Chunhee, I’ll give you three rainbow cookies if you go to the other room and play by yourself for five minutes.”

“Five cookies,” Chunhee bargains. “One for every minute.”

“Okay, fine, take the damn cookies and go,” says Soonyoung, shoving the box of treats to Chunhee’s chest. When he’s safely out of earshot, Soonyoung turns to Chan and says, very seriously, “And even if I were, I wouldn’t be telling you anything about it!"

“Oh god, it’s even worse than I thought. Who is it? Is it someone I know? What kind of girl would even date you, hyung? You’re as moody as your sister when she’s on her period.”

“For a guy who claims to have a girlfriend, you’re really fucking insensitive, you know that?”

“My girlfriend hasn’t gotten her period yet,” says Chan, barely blinking an eyelash. Soonyoung makes a face. “She’s a late bloomer.”

“Ew,” says Soonyoung. “I don’t want to know how you even know that.”

“Open communication and fostering trust are important in any relationship,” says Chan. “And so is protection.”

“No,” says Soonyoung, horrified. “This is not happening. You are _not_ giving me the sex talk.”

“Someone has to!” Chan protests. “Your mom put me up to this, okay?”

“What do _you_ know?” Soonyoung wails. “You’re _fourteen_.”

“I listen in health class,” says Chan. “I’m very mature for my age.”

“I’m not listening to this,” says Soonyoung. “ _Nope_.”

“This is as awkward for me as it was when your mom asked me if I felt comfortable enough to give you a box of condoms too,” says Chan, giving him a dead-eyed stare.

Soonyoung gapes at him. “Are you giving me one?”

“No way,” says Chan. “I wouldn’t buy you any even if your mom paid me to do it.”

“Why is this happening to me, then?” Soonyoung despairs.

“Let’s just get this over and done with, hyung,” says Chan, resigned to his fate by now. He clears his throat, and reaches out to take Soonyoung’s hands into his. “When a man and a woman love each other very much—"

“Chan, seriously, _stop_.”

“Five minutes!” Chunhee yells, barreling back into the room and throwing himself against Soonyoung’s back like he’s three years old again and cutely demanding piggyback rides. Soonyoung nearly hacks out a lung at the impact, but at least he has an excuse to jerk away from Chan’s hold. “I want more cookies!”

“Chunhee-yah,” says Chan, rubbing his forehead. “Hyung’s a little busy trying to give life-changing advice.”

“Keep it,” says Soonyoung, begging by now. “I don’t need to know.”

“But I haven’t even gotten to inserting tab A into slot B—"

“Lee Chan,” says Soonyoung, pausing the game and putting his controller down. He claps his hands against Chunhee’s ears despite his whines, and says, very seriously, “I’m not dating _girls_.”

Something in the gears in Chan’s head seems to click, and Chan looks at him mutely, slack-jawed. It seems like a long, interminable moment before Chan finally manages to shake himself out of his wide-eyed surprise long enough to croak out: “So. Wonwoo-hyung, then?”

“Yeah,” says Soonyoung. It’s the first time he’s ever articulated it to anyone that isn’t his sister, and it’s less earth-shattering than he’d built it up to be in his head, conspicuously lacking in pyroclastic explosions, hellfire razing the earth, the whole shebang. Very anticlimactic, really.

It doesn’t keep the knot in his stomach from settling, though. At least, until Chan sighs and resumes the game with the start button on his controller.

“Thank fuck for small mercies, then,” says Chan, and something in Soonyoung’s chest finally loosens. “Now I can definitely look your mom in the eye and tell her she doesn’t have to worry about you knocking a girl up.”

“Oh my god,” says Soonyoung, face paling. “ _No_.”

*

Thousands of won poorer yet again and a trek back home later, he changes course halfway and decides to take the train instead.

He calls Wonwoo when he’s about to get off at the stop near Wonwoo’s house, and Wonwoo picks up after two rings, like he’s been waiting for him to call for a while now. Except Soonyoung knows he’s probably only answering so quickly because he’d been playing games on his phone like a nerd, never mind that Soonyoung had spent a fortune buying all those prepaid cards for him on their last monthsary.

“I just had the most traumatic conversation of my life with Chan and now I’m heading over there to kick your ass for letting me live through that excruciating moment by myself,” says Soonyoung.

“Aww, poor baby,” says Wonwoo. “Did you have to explain the birds and the bees to him when he told you about his girlfriend?”

“Worse,” says Soonyoung, grimly. “ _He_ tried to do it to _me_.”

Wonwoo laughs, and Soonyoung almost forgets he’s even planning on murdering Wonwoo. “I’m guessing sex is off the agenda for today, then?”

“I’ll never be able to get it up,” Soonyoung despairs.

“Not even for me?”

“ _Especially_ not for you.”

Wonwoo proves him wrong about that later on, when he’s got Soonyoung backed up against his bedroom wall with a clothes hanger digging painfully into his back as Wonwoo hikes him up and ruts against him, grip tight under the back of his thighs.

He’s glad he’s still got full control over his dick, even if Wonwoo keeps teasing him over it. Maybe all those doujin about magical healing cocks are right about something, for once.

“At least we’re sure Chan hasn’t killed your boners in the slightest,” says Wonwoo, nuzzling his jaw.

“Oh my god,” says Soonyoung. “Please shut up about Chan before you kill it dead _forever_.”

“It could be worse,” says Wonwoo. “You could have talked to your mother.”

“ _Stop talking_ ,” Soonyoung demands.

Wonwoo looks down at him, eyes hooded. “Make me, then.”

Soonyoung’s nothing if not a competitive guy, so he kisses him, slow and deep, just to shut him up.

*

His mother’s waiting for him in the living room, when he tries to sneak back to his room at eleven-thirty that night.

“Kwon Soonyoung,” she yells, loud and booming and promising all sorts of terror and evisceration if he doesn’t get his ass in front of her _right now_. “Where have you _been_?”

“Nowhere important,” he squeaks out.

“ _Nowhere_? What could you have been doing that was so important?”

“I was—” He bites his lip. “I was at Wonwoo’s!”

“Wonwoo?” She repeats, sounding skeptical. “Are you sure you’re not using that poor boy to go flirt with girls instead?”

“ _Mom_ , what the hell?”

“Well, what was I supposed to think? You were supposed to be here by seven and you didn’t even call or text,” she says, and then she does that thing he hates were all her anger and indignation bleeds out into something more tearful. “I thought a car ran you over, or you got kidnapped, or— or—”

God, he hates it when she uses the guilt card on him. He pinches the bridge of his nose, then exhales. “You can call Wonwoo if you want,” he says, flatly. “I was there all this time, I swear.”

“I’m sure your friend will cover for you. I’ve used that trick when I was a teenager too, Kwon Soonyoung, don’t think you can run circles around me—”

“Jeeze, mom, can you just trust me on this?” He says, red-faced by now. “And stop asking Chan to do unnecessary things like—like—you know exactly what I’m talking about!”

“At least Lee Chan listens to me and tells me about his lovely girlfriend,” she bemoans. “Unlike my own son, my baby boy who I had to carry in my womb for _nine months_ , constantly breaking my heart—”

Soonyoung knows better by now to retreat to his room. If Wonwoo tells him he’s too dramatic sometimes, then he’s clearly never seen Soonyoung’s mother’s own theatrics.

“I don’t have a girlfriend,” he says, curling his fingers into fists and nails digging into his palms. “I don’t want one!”

“Honey, you’re seventeen,” says his mother. “You don’t know what you want.”

*

She’s wrong about that, though. He knows what he wants. He’s a simple guy, like that.

He wants to eat good food, to play video games all day. He wants to kick back and not have to worry about getting into a good college, or getting into uni, _period_. He wants to quit all the hours of cram school, all the stress and pressure that he can only forget about when he’s got Wonwoo’s hands rubbing circles across his hip and his fingers threading through his hair, pushing back sweaty bangs from his forehead when they’re drifting off and lying together in an exhausted, boneless heap.

He wants to stop being scared about the future. He wants certainty, as clear and grounding as Wonwoo’s hand in his. He wants to kiss his boyfriend in his own room. He wants to look at Wonwoo and say, _this is mine_ , wants to pick up a fresh sheet of the career counselling form and write, _I want to be with Jeon Wonwoo when I grow up_ , on the blank space under the question, _what do you aspire to be in the future?_ And he wants it to not be funny, to not be a joke when he writes it down.

The movies, they all tell him that first loves don’t last, that high school romances burn out fast when they step into college, into adulthood, into X number of years and Y number of heartaches and sex later. And maybe Soonyoung’s naïve, maybe it won’t last, either, but—

He means it so badly, it hurts. Wants it so, so badly, he never wants to grow up.

*

Being seventeen sucks.

*

He fails the next practice test, karmic retribution coming back to bite his ass.

Wonwoo’s waiting for him in the chicken place a couple of blocks away for a while now, and if he’s any later than he already is, Wonwoo will probably make him pay for everything and then wheedle him into getting him coffee as a reward for him freezing his ass off outside. And kisses. Lots of kisses. But Soonyoung’s not in any mood to think about that, not when he’s failing cram school as it is and he’s gonna flunk Suneung too and oh god, what if he ends up being a bum forever? What if Chan is right and no one wants to take him in as a glorified fuck buddy? _What if_?

Should have studied harder. Should have spent those weekends cracking open books instead of sleeping in and fooling around and kissing Wonwoo, again and again. Should have, shouldn’t have, should have—

He’s staring at the road opposite the entrance of the cram school, unseeing, when a hand sticks out to wave at his face. It takes a while for him to focus, but when he does, he feels a lump form in his throat, wet and heavy, lodged like it’s stuck there.

“Yo,” says Wonwoo, hair pushed back under a snapback and carrying a bag of takeout in his hands. He looks like a douchebag, but Soonyoung can feel something inside him clench, wavering at the sight. “I bought you dinner. I wasn’t sure if you just keeled over from hunger and had to check it out myself.”

He opens his mouth to say something probably disparaging, but he closes it again and thinks better of it when he sees Soonyoung’s face. “Soonyoung?” He asks, voice hushed. He reaches out to touch his arm, like he’s half-afraid one wrong move will make Soonyoung crack and splinter. “What’s wrong?”

It’s hard for Soonyoung to explain, exactly, why he bursts into tears at that.

*

An hour after he’s calmed down enough with lots of tissue, a couple of chicken wings and a hydrating half-liter of mineral water from the nearest convenience store later, Soonyoung says, flatly, “I’m never gonna pass Suneung.”

Wonwoo’s quiet for a bit, then he bumps his shoulder against Soonyoung’s. “If your sister can pass it, then you probably will. Aren’t you smarter than her at math?”

“I had ten points in English,” says Soonyoung. “ _Ten_.”

“Better than zero, right?” Soonyoung levels him an unamused look, and the smile on Wonwoo’s face falters. “Sorry, I— I’m not good at this whole cheering up thing.”

He knows. Wonwoo’s kinda awkward like that, better at using his words to get under Soonyoung’s skin than to soothe open wounds with a salve, but he’s not heartless, no. He’s kind. Soft. He’s just really, really bad at showing it.

It’s just hard to remember things like that, when you’re seventeen and it feels like the end of the world when you fuck something up. But Soonyoung bites the impulsive retort that’s lingering on the tip of his tongue, the fight bleeding out of him when he looks at Wonwoo’s hesitation, the uncertainty in his strained smile.

Maybe Soonyoung’s growing up a little, too.

“I bet a sugar daddy would take me on a trip to Studio Ghibli to cheer me up,” says Soonyoung.

“How about Everland?” Wonwoo says. “It’s close enough, right?”

“Not even remotely,” says Soonyoung.

*

“Mom, can I—”

“No,” she says. “You’re not doing anything except chores and studying until you pull those grades back up.”

With a sigh, he ducks out of the kitchen, and then whispers furiously to Wonwoo on his phone, “No good. She’s not budging. I’m still grounded.”

“But I’m already at the bus stop, Soonyoung-ah,” Wonwoo wheedles. “I even bought tickets!”

“I _told_ you I wasn’t sure if I could go, remember?”

“But we haven’t been on a date in days. _Days_ , Soonyoung-ah.”

“Fine,” he bites out, gritting his teeth. He inches towards the living room, where his dad’s watching a movie where aliens are invading the city and exploding everything in their path. “Dad, can I—”

“Is this life-threatening?” His father asks, holding a hand up. “Do I have to pay for anything?”

“Not really,” Soonyoung hedges. “I was gonna go to Everland with a friend, but mom won’t let me.”

“Listen to your mother, then,” says his father, with a shrug.

“But daaaad,” says Soonyoung, “One of my favorite groups is gonna be performing for free, and if I don’t go there, I’ll never be able to meet them except at a fanmeet, and you _know_ how expensive those are—"

“Say no more,” says his father, stopping him before he can guilt trip him into letting him touch his Chuseok money. “Just go and ogle those idols you like so much.”

“Love you, dad,” he says, eyes scrunching up, and he gets out of the house before his mother notices he’s not cooped up in his room dying a slow death over prepositions and syntax.

*

He meets Wonwoo at the bus stop and huffs at Wonwoo laughing at his hard-won efforts to sneak out that weekend, a feat Wonwoo wouldn’t understand with the Jeon household’s lax parenting methods.

He’s getting the fringe benefits of their relative generosity with pocket money, though, Wonwoo brandishing the tickets with a self-satisfied grin that unfurls and turns a little shier at Soonyoung’s quick peck on the corner of his mouth. Wonwoo buys him all the snacks he wants, too, even if he keeps poking Soonyoung’s stomach and making jokes about how his stomach is a greedy, bottomless pit just like its owner, but Soonyoung’s not complaining, not when he gets to eat all the cotton candy and popcorn he can shovel into his mouth.

Oh, and practically fellating a corndog that makes Wonwoo’s smirk waver and his eyes linger a little too closely at every purse of Soonyoung’s lips. That one’s fun, too.

They get on all the rides they know the other hates and pretend to fall out of line when they’re queuing up for the ones the other _really_ likes, and Soonyoung doesn’t mind it one bit even when he nearly upends his cup of soda on Wonwoo when they go on the carousel. Even when Wonwoo pulls him inside a photo booth, he’s in a good enough mood to take all those stupid couple shots where they slowly come together, frame by frame, their fingers touching, then their palms. Their shoulders. Their cheeks. Their lips, in a close-mouthed kiss.

And if they share ice cream and put their hands on each other’s back pockets as they watch the Moonlight Parade, no one says anything about it or even cares at all.

It’s all Soonyoung’s to keep.

*

September passes, and October drags on, interminably long. In the weeks leading up to Suneung, Soonyoung spends more time on his desk, studying more than just the planes of Wonwoo’s chest, the geography of his body. “Making out can wait,” Wonwoo tells him over the static of the video call they’d set up, a compromise while Soonyoung’s trying (and mostly failing) to push his English scores up. “We’ve got all the time in the world after the exams.”

“I’m gonna expire by then,” Soonyoung bemoans. “I can feel my dick shriveling up and falling off.”

“It’s probably just the cold,” says Wonwoo, heartless as ever. “Stop sleeping in the nude. It’s the middle of _October_.”

“Please stop flirting,” says Chan, giving them both a disapproving look from his spot on Soonyoung’s computer chair— yet another compromise, having Chan chaperone just to make sure Soonyoung keeps his hands off his dick to stave off the boredom. “I can literally feel my insides squirming.”

Soonyoung scowls, and Wonwoo clears his throat, squinting behind his glasses as he looks at his flashcards. “Next word, then. _P-a-t-i-e-n-c-e_ , Soonyoung, what does that mean?”

“Dickface.”

“ _C-h-a-s-t-i-t-y_ , then?”

“Cockblocker.”

“How do you pronounce that?”

“Lee Chan,” says Soonyoung, equally deadpan. Chan flips him a finger, and Wonwoo laughs.

“If you’re so good at this, how about _asshole_ , then,” Chan interrupts, making a face at him. “How do you spell that?”

“W-o-n-w-o-o,” Soonyoung dutifully recites.

“Congratulations,” says Wonwoo. “You’ve got nothing right.”

“I can’t wait until this is all over and I don’t have to see your face again,” says Soonyoung.

“Who, me or Chan?”

“Undecided,” says Soonyoung. “You’re both equally insufferable.”

“Fine, let’s shelve English and do math so you can laugh at me and feel better about yourself,” says Wonwoo, rolling his eyes.

“I love you,” says Soonyoung, half out of honesty, and half just to make Chan gag in the background.

If a tiny part of him also wants to see Wonwoo’s frown turn into a flustered smile, well. He’s never been that great at fractions, anyway.

*

By the third week of October, Soonyoung cracks and begs off his self-imposed moratorium against seeing Wonwoo outside of school. He cajoles (reads: annoys) Jihoon into sacrificing his living room to house them for a few group study sessions, dragging Junhui with them under the guise of getting help in the optional foreign language elective. In reality, Junhui’s mostly there to keep Jihoon preoccupied enough to not notice he’s essentially third-wheeling in his own home.

“Since when were you two this close?” Jihoon had asked once, when Wonwoo reached out to tickle Soonyoung’s ankle after making a jibe about his terrible mental math skills. Soonyoung had quickly learned to pull out the big guns if he wanted to keep Jihoon distracted, and Junhui was a _very_ excellent distraction.

On the upside, he’s spending more time snuggling up against Wonwoo when they’re all half-asleep at two in the morning and succumbing to the siren call of dreamland. On the other hand, his mother still thinks this is all an elaborate plot Soonyoung is pulling to stage orgies at his friends’ own homes and ruin their lives forever, too. It’s a work in progress, even if it _is_ a little gratifying to know his own mother thinks his life is exciting enough for all the things she’s dreading.

Maybe if he or Wonwoo were born as girls, she’d really have something to worry about, but right now, they’re both too exhausted to even think about sex.

Or, at least, do it. The thinking-about-sex part is practically default for a teenager.

“I can hear you thinking instead of sleeping,” Wonwoo whispers, lips brushing against his brow. “What’s got you so worked up this time?”

“Nothing,” says Soonyoung. “Just thinking about how much you suck at math.”

“Fuck you,” says Wonwoo, and he reaches out to twist Soonyoung’s nipple, making Soonyoung yelp and nearly knock Junhui over as he jerks away. Thank god Junhui sleeps like the dead, though, rolling over to the other side and hogging all of the blankets on the floor. “I hope you fail English just for that.”

“You can’t jinx me,” Soonyoung protests. He holds his hands up, lacing their fingers together to get Wonwoo to stop. “It’s not even November yet!”

“I’ll take full responsibility, then,” Wonwoo promises. He bends to press a kiss to Soonyoung’s fingertips, one by one. “Future CEO, and all that.”

“Gross,” says Soonyoung, feeling his mouth dry up. “Shut up.”

“If you _both_ don’t shut up, I’m gonna make sure you never even _get_ to the testing grounds,” says Jihoon, sounding grumpy from his perch on the couch.

That’s the closest they get to getting caught, but Soonyoung can’t help the bubble of laughter that erupts from his throat.

*

“Soonyoung-ah,” says his mother, knocking on his door. “Can we talk?”

“One sec,” he says, looking up from where he’s pretending to write a practice essay instead of talking to Wonwoo over a video call. “I’m a little busy, mom.”

“It’s important,” she says, sounding so serious that he stops typing and actually pulls both his earphones out.

“Okay,” he says, then shuts his laptop, but not before sending Wonwoo a kissy face emoticon on their chat. He follows her out of the room and downstairs, then stops at the foot of the stairs when he sees his father and his sister waiting for him in the living room too.

“What is it?” He asks, suspiciously. His sister doesn’t look at him, and a sense of dread fills his stomach. “Noona? What’s going on?”

“I couldn’t hide it,” says his sister, sounding despondent even as she strokes Hoshi’s back. “They were getting suspicious.” She looks up, staring at him dead in the eye. “They know you borrowed my uniform.”

“Oh my god,” says Soonyoung.

This cannot be fucking happening, he thinks. Not when it’s only a few days until the end of October and Suneung is so fucking close. He’d expected doomsday and the apocalypse in November, not right now. If his parents know he’s been using his sister’s old uniform to do kinky shit with his boyfriend, he’s gonna fucking _kill_ Wonwoo, no questions asked.

Instead of asking him directly what he has or hasn’t been doing with Wonwoo, though, his mother just folds her hands on her lap and frowns.

“When were you planning on introducing us to your girlfriend?” His father asks, very carefully, like he’s treading on thin ice, and it’s all but cracking with his mother’s impatient fidgeting.

“What?”

“I thought you said you weren’t dating a girl right now,” she says. “Were you lying to me the whole time?”

“I have no idea what you’re even talking about,” he says, truthfully. It doesn’t count if Wonwoo’s not a girl, right? Last time he checked, Wonwoo’s tits were flat as a board and he had a dick, not a vagina. Semantics, really.

“You’ve been bringing a girl over, haven’t you? I knew it. I was wondering where your sister’s clothes went, and it’s true, isn’t it?”

“Mom,” he splutters. “What the heck?”

“You’ve been having a girl over for a while now, and you’ve been meeting her at your friends’ houses like it’s some floozy love hotel. What will their parents say, Soonyoung? How am I supposed to show my face to PTA meetings now?” He lets out a strangled sound, but his mother plows on, impervious to his intense urge to dunk his head into a pool of water and never get back up. “Oh god, are you using protection? Are you sure she isn’t pregnant by now? Soonyoung, you haven’t even graduated high school yet, what do we do if you’ve knocked a girl up—”

“There is no girl,” he grits out.

“Then what—”

“Mom,” he says, louder this time. “I’m gay.”

She looks at him like he’s just told her he’s filled out his career form again and decided to write down _idol_ or _actor_ or _the Queen of England_ in his list of semi-improbable career options instead.

“You can’t be serious.”

His head is pounding. His stomach keeps twisting in knots. He storms back up to his room, tuning out his sister’s worried calls of his name and his mother’s flustered, thoughtless stream of words: how selfish he was, at seventeen. How he didn’t know what he wanted. How unfilial, disobedient, stubborn to a fault, when once she’d called him her best son, her only son, the one who’d never break her heart. Funny, now, how he turned out; how he’d kept breaking her heart, the older he got.

And even through the tears that prick at his eyes, he almost wants to laugh when he finally hears what his father has to say to console her, so eerily reminiscent of Chan:

“Well,” his father says, finally. “At least now we know he’s not getting anyone pregnant.”

*

“I heard about what happened,” says Chan, over the phone. He takes a breath, like he’s not sure about what to say next or how to say it, but he plows on. “Mom says I can’t hang out with you anymore. At least, until this all blows over.”

“Oh,” says Soonyoung. His voice feels tight, choked up, and his sinuses plugged up like they’d been all weekend since he’d locked himself in his room and felt, really and truly, what it was like to really hate himself more than he’d hated being a teenager. “It’s fine. More time to hang out with your fictional girlfriend, right?”

“I’d rather hang out with you, though,” says Chan, clearing his throat. “And we broke up a week ago, you know. She said I wasn’t as cute as this high schooler she’d met online.”

“Well, that sucks,” says Soonyoung. “Maybe you’ll find someone better soon.”

“Love is dead,” Chan jokes, and when it falls flat, he says, “Sorry. I don’t know why I said that.”

“It’s okay,” says Soonyoung. “Neither did I.”

Chan exhales, a sigh so weary and bone-deep Soonyoung almost wants to laugh at how old he sounds. “Being a teenager sucks, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Soonyoung agrees. “It definitely does.”

*

He and his mother settle into a mutual understanding after that: he avoids her, and she avoids him, and they don’t stay in the same room if they can help it, not if they don’t want their emotions to get the better of them and disturb the tenuous, fragile peace that hovers in the air.

It’s not as bad as the first time he’d had a wet dream in grade school, or that time he’d punched a kid and gotten into the principal’s office for it. No, it’s worse. It’s a sum of all the bad parts of those experiences and more, and it’s strangling him, eating him alive. He wants the awkwardness to be over. God, he wants it so much. But if there’s one thing he’s gotten from his mother, it’s stubbornness. Misplaced pride.

“She’ll come around,” his dad says, flicking through the channels in the living room with his usual equanimity— so unlike them both, and maybe that’s what makes it easier for him.

“I highly doubt that,” says Soonyoung.

Sometimes, love isn’t enough.

*

It’s a little easier to breathe when he’s out of the house. Easier, still, when he’s with Wonwoo, and his books and worksheets slowly migrate out of his room and into Wonwoo’s, bit by bit.

“I want to run away from home,” he says, apropos of nothing in the middle of a study break.

“ _Don’t_ ,” says Wonwoo. “Think of all the New Year’s money you’ll get on January. Think of your cat.” He breaks the other half of his popsicle and hands it over to Soonyoung. “Think of how your sister will take over your room and never give it back.”

“I thought you were gonna house me like a pampered pet in your apartment when we get into uni,” says Soonyoung.

“It’s a work-in-progress,” says Wonwoo. He sticks the popsicle into his mouth, and adds, voice muffled, “The one with the hot tub is a bit over-budget.”

“Kinky,” says Soonyoung. He nibbles at his ice cream, staring at the ceiling in Wonwoo’s room. “Why can’t we just fast forward and skip all the parts that suck?”

“You can’t skip Suneung, Soonyoung.” Wonwoo sighs, then ruffles his hair when Soonyoung doesn’t respond. “Chin up. Your dad’s cool about it, right? And so is your sister?”

“Mom’s not,” says Soonyoung, glumly. He scratches at his ankle, a phantom ache in it not unlike growing pains. “She thinks it’s just a phase.”

“Well, what does it matter what she thinks?” 

“She’s my mom,” says Soonyoung. “When does it not matter?”

Wonwoo rubs at the corner of his eyes. Presses a slow, lingering kiss to the top of his lip. Touches their foreheads together, oddly more intimate than when he’d had his hand down Soonyoung’s pants months ago in this same bed, this same room. And Soonyoung, fully-clothed, feels even more naked now, raw and blistering open. Exposed.

“You’ll figure it out,” he says. “You always do.”

“What if I don’t?” Soonyoung asks. “There’s a first time for everything, right?”

Wonwoo smiles at him, a little sad, a little tender. “I’ll be here with you,” he says, palm open and resting right above where Soonyoung’s heart is beating, quietly, as tight and small as a clenched fist. “For as long as it takes.”

*

Suneung arrives, unbidden, and with it the culmination of all of Soonyoung’s fears and sleepless nights all rolled into one.

It’s weird how everything’s so bright outside, though— like it’s not the end of the world for him and tens of thousands of other seniors in the country. Like today won’t be a turning point in his life.

“Guess the world really doesn’t stop for anyone, huh?” He says aloud, waking the cat up. Hoshi lifts his head, squinting at him, then settles back into napping when Soonyoung strokes to top of his head to calm Hoshi’s nerves and his own.

He takes a shower and brushes his teeth, then changes into his uniform mechanically. When he checks his phone, there’s dozens of messages and notifications blowing up his screen. Lots of _good luck_ s and _FIGHTING_ s on the GCs. Jihoon grumbling about being woken up earlier just to eat breakfast before he leaves. Junhui contemplating (half-jokingly, half-not) if maybe he should just pack up his bags and fuck off elsewhere if he flunks Korean. Wonwoo, silent as always in the GCs, but leaving Soonyoung with this: _I love you, even if you end up failing English_.

 _I hope you fail math too_ , Soonyoung texts back, and leaves a heart emoji at the end even if his internal organs feel like they’re eating themselves and his heart is ready to fall out of his throat at any given moment.

His father’s awake by the time he comes down, ready to drive him even if Soonyoung’s spent a better part of his life commuting by himself. He looks even more placid than usual, but at the way his fingers keep drumming at his knees, Soonyoung knows he must be fucked, if his unfazed father is nervous for him. No pressure, he thinks. What a fucking joke.

“Yo, dumbass,” his sister hollers, right as he’s buckling himself into the front seat. She taps against the window and shoves a packed lunchbox to his face when he finally rolls it down. “You left this.”

“Did you cook this?” He asks. “Is there poison in it? Is this gonna be my last meal officially?”

“I didn’t make it,” she says, rolling her eyes, and he feels his heart leap into his throat again, this wild, traitorous thing, so hopeful. So naïve.

 _If you end up failing, at least make sure that Jeon boy makes it into med or law school_ , says his mother’s handwriting, a tiny, indecipherable scrawl across a napkin that he would have thrown away without noticing on any other day. _Doctors and attorneys make good money_.

Parents. Sometimes they mean well, but they don’t show it. Soonyoung clenches his fingers into a fist, stuffs it against his lips, firmly set into a thin, straight line that he can’t break, won’t, not if he doesn’t want to end up crying before the first part of the exam even starts. His father just looks at him from the corner of his eyes, then fiddles with the radio until he finds something that sounds like the things Soonyoung listens to, even if Soonyoung keeps telling him, time and again, that he really hates this fucking band.

“Aish, stop crying,” his father says, breaking a pork bun in half and shoving it to his mouth when they’re in the middle of traffic. “You’ll get ugly if you cry.”

“This song is terrible,” Soonyoung wails, through a mouthful of food.

“I know,” says his father, calmly. “Why’d you think I picked it?”

*

If Soonyoung fails Suneung, he thinks he has a lot of other things to blame for it. The universe not aligning with his life goals. His father annoying him with the worst song in existence from the worst period fucking period band period _ever_. His sister nearly clocking his brains out when she’d thrown a plastic lunchbox to his face. His mother putting something in the packed lunch, poison, maybe, or love, he doesn’t know. The rice ball is too salty, the egg is too salty, even the lettuce leaves are salty, but that could just be his sinuses all plugged up from crying and having a mental breakdown over what would be the biggest test of his life so far in his father’s car, before it even hit seven-thirty in the morning.

He could also blame Chan for not being a good watchdog (he’s lying— Chan’s perfect), or Jihoon for hoarding the couch and letting them sleep on the cold, damp floor (okay, so it was insulated, whatever), or Junhui getting distracted instead of studying with them whenever he got bored. He could blame it on Wonwoo, whose bed he’s slept in more than his own in the past few months, whose clothes smell and fit him like a second skin by now, whose body is always so, so tempting to sink into and forget about his responsibilities.

His knobby fingers. His soft palm. His bony wrists. His broad shoulders. His neck. His jaw. His scrunched-up nose. His crinkly-eyed smile. His mouth. His teeth. His tongue. His lips.

Soonyoung knows it all, memorizes it perfectly as he steals a good luck kiss in the boy’s bathroom on the third floor, just before the start of the exam. Wonwoo’s grip around his waist, his back, is tight, bruising, like he doesn’t want to let go. Like he can’t bear to. And if Soonyoung’s a little late by a couple of seconds, well, then—

It’s all Wonwoo’s fault.

*

The end of the day comes faster than he expects it to, and by the time he stumbles out of his father’s car and into their house, he’s ready to just call it quits and sleep for eternity, just like Jihoon claims he’s going to do when he gets home.

Or, at least, until he has to come in to school. They’re a bit lax with the graduating seniors, permissive around the month of Suneung, and that’s a small comfort Soonyoung can rely on, at least. The least that can be said about his attendance, the better.

“Oh good,” says his sister, watching him toe off his shoes in a daze with Hoshi in her arms. “You’re still alive.”

“I feel like death,” he says.

She rolls her eyes but steps aside to let him in.

He messages Wonwoo with a quick, _I’m home_ , and nearly trips on the stairs in his socks when he pays more attention to his phone screen than the steps. He’d barrel into his room and flop onto his bed faster, but he stops at the sight of his open door. The small sliver of light from the bulb in his room that tells him someone’s inside.

He finds his mother staring at a strip of pictures he’d tucked in between his textbooks as a bookmark, both to keep prying eyes out and to keep it close to him for the days that studying got too hard. For a moment, he’s filled with a rush of anger, of embarrassment at being caught, but before he can give into the feeling, he stops and hovers by the doorway, watching her.

She turns the polaroid over, then tucks it back into his books. “You used to smile like this more when you were younger,” she says. “And then you grew up and went through your teenage phase, and it was like you were moody and irritable half the time that it felt like I didn’t understand you anymore.”

He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t know what to say. _I don’t understand myself either_ sounds so insufficient. _I’m still the same me from that time_ , sounds weak, like an excuse. He’s changed in more ways than one, he’s sure. Grown up a bit, here and there. A lot, where it matters.

“You kept a lot of secrets,” she says. “Most of the time, I felt like I knew more about you from the things I found in your room, or from your sister, or Chan—” Her face twists into something sad, something lonely. “It felt like I couldn’t trust you anymore, or worse— you couldn’t trust me.”

“I wouldn’t trust myself either,” he confesses. “I did a lot of stupid shit.” He rubs at his elbows. “I still do, actually.”

“What about—” She twists her fingers together, wringing them like she’s not sure how to call Wonwoo anymore, not when she used to praise him at turns and sigh over having him as a son-in-law once upon a time. Funny, how irony works out. “What about him?”

Soonyoung thinks about all the stupid things he’s done with Wonwoo, in the past few crazy months. Of all the even dumber things they’d been up to when they’d just been in their small, tiny circle, not as lovers, just friendly enemies that pushed buttons just to get each other’s attention. And then he thinks that maybe, just maybe, he’s been looking at Wonwoo that way for a lot longer than he’s thought.

“He makes me happy,” he says, shrugging helplessly. “Isn’t that enough?”

“You’re only seventeen,” she says. He braces himself for the worst, steels himself for another litany of, _you’re just a kid. You don’t know any better. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Stop breaking my heart, Soonyoung-ah_ , but it doesn’t come.

Instead, she sighs, shoulders sagging. And suddenly, she looks so much older than he remembers, now. So much smaller. Or maybe that’s because he’s taller than she is. They’re both growing older.

“Well, you’re old enough to date,” she says. “Your sister was fifteen when she started going out with a senior. Can you imagine? _Fifteen_. You and your sister, always giving me a headache and breaking your poor mother’s heart—”

He swallows the lump in his throat, face scrunching up, and she sighs and pats the back of his head as he throws himself into her arms, feeling like he’s a kid all over again and crying because Wonwoo made fun of him for kissing other boys, only to end up kissing him even more now that they’re older. He’s still that same kid inside, sniffling into his mother’s shoulder and being soothed with her thin hands stroking the top of his head, fingers rough and wrinkled from decades of hard work.

“There, there,” she shushes him, harsh words belying the gentleness of her touch. “Stop crying. You know you’re ugly when you cry.”

“Your face is my face,” he retorts, voice soppy and muddled.

“I know,” she says. “But how are you going to keep that Jeon boy around if you keep sniffling and crying all the time?”

“He thinks it’s cute.”

“Blind,” she despairs. “Just like your father.”

She pinches his nose with a handkerchief, telling him to blow, and he lets out a hiccup-y laugh, wet and gross all over. She touches the sides of his face. His cheeks. His red-rimmed eyes. And then she smiles at him, like she hasn’t in a long, long time.

“Bring your boy over next time,” she says, voice hushed.

“I will,” he promises.

*

“So the good news is, I made up with my mom,” Soonyoung tells Wonwoo when he wakes up approximately twenty hours later.

“That’s good,” says Wonwoo, still sleepy from the other line. “What’s the bad news?”

“The bad news is, mom wants you to come over for dinner next time,” says Soonyoung.

He hears a crashing sound from Wonwoo’s end, like something heavy’s just fallen off a considerable height. “Wonwoo?” He yelps, panicked by now. “Are you okay?”

“’m fine,” Wonwoo mumbles after a while, and a few rustling noises and the sound of furniture being moved later, he says, sounding more awake this time, “I just fell off the couch.”

“Why the hell are you even on the couch?” Soonyoung asks. “I thought you were in your room.”

“I couldn’t sleep and played games in the living room all night,” Wonwoo mutters. “So sue me.”

“Oh my god, I’m dating an actual middle schooler,” Soonyoung despairs. “What am I ever gonna say to my mom now? I take it back, you’re officially uninvited forever.”

“Hey, I’m not that bad,” Wonwoo protests. “Besides, doesn’t your mother like Chan?”

“My mother has questionable taste in men, barring my father.” Soonyoung clicks his tongue. “See, she thought you were the good one before she knew you were targeting my ass.”

“It’s a very nice ass,” Wonwoo concedes.

“Still not the point,” says Soonyoung. “And you’re still off the guest list forever.”

“But what about our plans to live together in uni, babe?” Wonwoo wheedles. “You can’t hide your mother from me forever.”

“I’ve decided to move to the mountains to be a monk. You’ll never be able to find me, either.”

“Shame. I think I’d miss you too much,” says Wonwoo, and it makes something in his stomach flutter, traitorous and easily pleased. “Monkhood’s not a great career choice for you, I think.”

“Why? Too loud?”

“No,” says Wonwoo. “You wouldn’t be able to live a life of celibacy.”

“That’s—” He flushes red, feeling warm all over. “That’s all your fault.”

“I take great pride in being the cause and cure for it,” says Wonwoo. “Though I _am_ interested in how you’d look shaved all over.”

“Stop that train of thought right now,” Soonyoung demands. “No shaving. Not _anywhere_.”

Wonwoo laughs, sounding absurdly amused with himself. Soonyoung’s lips twitch, but he keeps it firmly pressed together, unwilling to let a peep out of his mouth. “You say that now, but you just wait and see,” says Wonwoo. “I’ll wear you down eventually.”

“With your sheer annoyance?” Soonyoung remarks, drily.

“With my unflappable charm and wit,” says Wonwoo.

“Yeah, good luck with that,” says Soonyoung. “You’re still not meeting my mother.”

*

He ends up coming over for dinner just a couple of days later. It’s awkward and tense, as (technically) first meetings with the parents tend to go, but Wonwoo holds his hand under the table the entire time and his mother doesn’t say anything unkind about it, doesn’t even bat an eyelash at their entwined fingers except to comment on Soonyoung’s chipped nails, uneven from biting them with his teeth in the hours leading up to Wonwoo’s arrival.

At seventeen, Soonyoung realizes he doesn't really know what he wants, that maybe none of them really do, all of them just making things up as they go along. But that's fine. Wonwoo’s there to hold his hand through it the entire time.

It’s not so bad, he thinks, not when he gets to walk Wonwoo back to the train station and kiss him, long and slow under the streetlights, no. Definitely not all he would have wanted for a first time, but still. They’ve got forever to figure it all out.


End file.
